Renaissance Studies Commons^™

Review Essay: Robert Mcmahon, Augustine's Prayerful Ascent: An Essay On The Literary Form Of The Confessions, Wilson G. Baroody

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Robert McMahon, Augustine's Prayerful Ascent: An Essay on the Literary Form of the Confessions, University oof Georgia Preess, 1989, 200 pp., biblio., index, $27.50.

Review Essay: Leon Battista Alberti, Dinner Pieces: A Translation Of The Intercenales, W. Scott Blanchard

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Leon Battista Alberti, Dinner Pieces: A Translation of the Intercenales, trans. and ed. David Marsh, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies and The Renaissance Society of America, 1987, ix, 268 pp., ill., biblio., index, $20.00.

Review Essay: Cindy L. Vitto, The Virtuous Pagan In Middle English Literature, Gary D. Schmidt

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Cindy L. Vitto, The Virtuous Pagan in Middle English Literature, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 79, Part 5, 1989, 97 pp., biblio., index, $15.00

Review Essay: John D. Bernard, Ceremonies Of Innocence: Pastoralism In The Poetry Of Edmund Spenser, Steven Max Miller

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John D. Bernard, Ceremonies of Innocence: Pastoralism in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser, Cambridge University Press, 1989, ix, 242 pp., biblio., $42.50.

Review Essay: Retha M. Warnicke, The Rise And Fall Of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics At The Court Of Henry Viii, Hugh T. Lovin

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Retha M. Warnicke, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII, Cambridge University Press, 1989, xi, 326 pp, ill., biblio., index, $10.95.

Gaspara Stampa's Poetry For Performance, Janet L. Smarr

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During the mid-sixteenth century in Italy, when a remarkable number of women joined in the production of poetry, one of the channels open to their pursuit of intellectual life and fame was the Venetian saloon. There music and poetry mingled as poems were frequently sung or recited before an audience rather than read privately in silence. The poetry of Gaspara Stampa was produced for this milieu. Published in 1554, a year after her death, her collection of more than three hundred poems has been approached in two main ways: as the autobiographical self-expression of a passionate woman and more recently …

Review Essay: Ernesto Grassi And Maristella Lorch, Folly And Insanity In Renaissance Literature, Silvia R. Fiore

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Ernesto Grassi and Maristella Lorch, Folly and Insanity in Renaissance Literature, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1986, 128 pp., biblio., index, $18.00.

Review Essay: Charles Dahlberg, The Literature Of Unlikeness, Brenda M. Hosington

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Charles Dahlberg, The Literature of Unlikeness, University Press of New England, 1988.

Review Essay: John Onians, Bearers Of Meaning: The Classical Orders In Antiquity, The Middle Ages, And The Renaissance, John F. Moffitt

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John Onians, Bearers of Meaning: The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Princeton University Press, 1988.

Narrative Description In Marco Polo's Travels: A Nonfictional Application Of Bakhtin's Chronotope, Ute Margarete Saine

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Throughout the text of Marco Polo's Devisement du monde, the reader is repeatedly enjoined to believe the narration. Such a captatio benevolantiae – the rhetorical convention inviting reader interest – typically takes the form of assertions, such as "I am telling nothing but the truth"; "Everybody ought too believe this"; "This is how it was"; "This is how Marco Polo saw it," and the like. The narrator even proposes to uphold the sophisticated distinction between eyewitness information, gathered firsthand, and accounts obtained from others:

We will set down things seen as seen, things heard as heard, so that our …

Review Essay: Frances A. Yates, The French Academies Of The Sixteenth Century, De Lamar Jensen

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Frances A. Yates, The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century, Routledge, 1988.

Review Essay: James R. Banker, Death In The Community: Memorialization And Confraternities In An Italian Commune In The Late Middle Ages, Dennis Romano

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James R. Banker, Death in the Community: Memorialization and Confraternities in an Italian Commune in the Late Middle Ages, University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Review Essay: A. J. Pollard, The Wars Of The Roses, K. G. Madison

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A. J. Pollard, The Wars of the Roses, St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Review Essay: John Cummins, The Hound And The Hawk: The Art Of Medieval Hunting, Melanie V. Shirk

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John Cummins, The Hound and the Hawk: The Art of Medieval Hunting, St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Review Essay: A. F. Allison And D. M. Rogers, The Contemporary Printed Literature Of The English Counter-Reformation Between 1558 And 1640, Vol. 1 Of Works In Languages Other Than English, Eugene R. Cunnar

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A. F. Allison and D. M. Rogers, The Contemporary Printed Literature of the English Counter-Reformation between 1558 and 1640, Vol. 1 of Works in Languages Other Than English, Gower Publishing/Scholar Press, 1989.

John O'Malley, ed., Catholicism in Early Modern History: A Guide to Research, Center for Reformation Research, 1988.

An Airborne Rescuer From The North In El Paso: "Ruggiero" Or "Perseus"? "Hippogriff" Or "Horse"?, John F. Moffitt

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I. A Question of Procedure

Front Matter

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No abstract provided.

Chaucer's Sense Of An Ending, Colleen Donnelly

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The problem of closure plagued Chaucer throughout his career, and critics have continued to point out his 'inability" to end or finish many of his poems. This lack of closure often frustrates the casual reader and perplexes the serious scholar, leaving both to wonder if Chaucer was incapable of bringing his poems to an end or if he simply intended to tease his audience with such inconclusiveness. Neither answer is quite satisfactory. To understand that this inconclusiveness was deliberately created by Chaucer the master poet, and not by Chaucer resignedly handing the pen over to the befuddled persona whoo records …

Exemplarity And The Interpretive Frame In Marguerite De Navarre's Heptaméron, V. Stanley Benfell

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Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron is one of the many works that have fallen prey to the contemporary fascination with indeterminacy and the poetics of failure. Increasingly, critics are writing of the "ambiguity" of the novella collection and the lack of narrative resolve that seems to characterize both the novellas and the discussions by the "devisants" that surround the novellas. My purpose in this essay is to contest this view. I intend to show that from a historical perspective, when the Heptaméron is seen in the light of the pervasive rhetorical concerns of late Renaissance writers, the prevailing critical view is …

The Similar Complementarity Of Othello, Maurice Hunt

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Certainly the argument that the principle of complementarity illuminates Othello is nothing new in Shakespeare studies. Over twenty years ago, Norman Rabkin, using an analogy from modern physics, described Shakespeare's characters and motifs as composing complementary wholes. The following excerpt accurately represents his reading of Othello's character: "He is what he is by virtue of what he is not. And what he is not, what he excludes from himself, rises quickly to the surface in the person of Iago. Whatever formulations we make about it, each reader senses the intimacy of the relationship between these mighty opposites, the degree to …

Review Essay: Henry Ansgar Kelly, Tragedy And Comedy From Dante To Pseudo-Dante, Madison U. Sowell

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Henry Ansgar Kelly, Tragedy and Comedy from Dante to Pseudo-Dante, University of California Press, 1989.

Review Essay: Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition, Kristine T. Utterback

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Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition, St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Guillaume De Machaut, Le Jugement Du Roy De Brehaigne And Remède De Fortune, Josette Britte-Ashford

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Guillaume de Machaut, Le jugement du roy de Brehaigne and Remède de fortune, ed. James I. Wimsatt and William W. Kibler, The Chaucer Library, University of Georgia Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Suzanne Noffke, O.P., Trans., The Letters Of St. Catherine Of Sienna, Vol. 1, Francis X. Hartigan

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Suzanne Noffke, O.P., trans., The Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, Vol. 1, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1988.

Review Essay: David Nicholas, The Van Arteveldes Of Ghent: The Varieties Of Vendetta And The Hero In History, Kelly Devries

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David Nicholas, The Van Arteveldes of Ghent: The Varieties of Vendetta and the Hero in History, Cornell University Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Julian N. Wasserman And Lois Roney, Eds., Sign Sentence Discourse: Language In Medieval Thought And Literature, John R. Rosenberg

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Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney, eds., Sign Sentence Discourse: Language in Medieval Though and Literature, Syracuse University Press, 1989.

Review Essay: Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death And Eternal Life, Vol. 9 Of Dogmatic Theology, Janine Marie Idziak

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Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Vol. 9 of Dogmatic Theology, by Johann Auer and Joseph Ratzinger, trans. Michael Waldstein, Catholic University of America Press, 1988.

Review Essay: Joanne S. Norman, Metamorphoses Of An Allegory: The Iconography Of The Psychomachia In Medieval Art, Steven Max Miller

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Joanne S. Norman, Metamorphoses of an Allegory: The Iconography of the Psychomachia in Medieval Art, Peter Lang, 1988.

Review Essay: Thomas P. Roche, Jr., Petrarch And The English Sonnet Sequences, David R. Shore

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Thomas P. Roche, Jr., Petrarch and the English Sonnet Sequences, AMS Press, 1989.

Review Essay: Murray J. Levith, Shakespeare's Italian Settings And Plays, Jay Farness

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Murray J. Levith, Shakespeare's Italian Settings and Plays, St. Martin's Press, 1989.